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• History of Christianization of Europe
• Soviet Union, Communist influence
• Map of European ethnic groups
• Map of Fascism in Europe (1922-75)
• History of Islamic conquest in Europe
• Religions & ethnic groups in Russia
• Detailed map of French colonization
• Detailed map of British colonization
• Napoleon's conquests & legacy
• Ethnic & religious map of pre-Nazi Poland

--MORE & NON-ENGLISH--

• Muhammad cartoon crisis in pictures
• Stalin's private summer home
• Ravenna: capital of Gothic empire
• Czar Nicholas II's Ukrainian palace
• European traditional costumes/dress
• Inside the Vatican, house of all wealth

--MORE & NON-ENGLISH--

• Islamic Mujahidin vs. Spain & El Cid
• Poland-Lithuania vs. Teutonic Order
• Nevskiy's Russia vs. German Crusaders
• Prussia vs. France (Nazi Propaganda)
• Qadafi: Europe will soon be Islamic
• Ivan the Terrible vs. Muslim Tatars
• Soviet Propaganda: Defeat of Germany 

--MORE & NON-ENGLISH--

• The Gypsies in history and today, Europe's public enemy
• History of Jihad in Chechnya
& Caucasus vs. Russians
• History of the Muslim Tatars in Russia
• Ethnic & religious history of Serbs, Croats, & Bosnians
• Breakaway states and independence movements in Europe
• The ancient Germanic Runic alphabet and Runestones
• Inside Bulgaria, 1st Slavic nation,
land of Thracian masters of gold
• 510-year struggle for Albanian homeland, and 552 for Kosovo
• 4,000-year-old white mummies of China, bringers of Buddhism 

--MORE & NON-ENGLISH--

Ethnic & religious map of Poland before the Nazi invasion
by James Mayfield (Chairman, European Heritage Library)

Print this Article    •    About the Author    •    Bibliography/Sources

Below is a detailed map of the ethnic, religious, and linguistic demographic populations of Poland before the Nazi invasion in 1939. It is extremely important in that the role of ethnicity played a large role in the German initiation of World War II itself. It shaped not only the behavior of the nationalistic Polish state as well as the Germans. The scans are from the superb Polish, Lithuanian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian history The Concise History of Poland, by Jerzy Lukowski and Hubert Zawadzki.

Background ethnic, religious, and linguistic history and its role in the Nazi invasion:

Often considered yet another backward Cold War country with little historic role, Poland (in part thanks to its Lithuanian partner) once dominated much of Eastern Europe and its history from the 14th century until the 17th before it was sent into the oblivion of the Partitions between the Germans (Prussia and Austria) and Russia. Although almost entirely Slavic, this massive empire of Poland-Lithuania (the two domains were almost always merged in a personal union) included distinct populations such as the Ukrainians, Russians, Lithuanians, Poles, Jews, Belarusians, and Germans. So too, although nearly entirely Catholic (both Lithuanians and Poles are deeply Catholic), it included Orthodox Christians, a small Jewish ethnic minority, Uniates (antitrinitarians), and Protestants that generally lived as second-class citizens under the domination of the Catholic Polonized orbit.

The north of modern Poland was, for nearly all of its history, dominated by the Germans with contracting and expanding borders. The German Teutonic Order (see our Teutonic history) ruled the whole region from roughly the 13th to the 15th century before being ultimately subject to Polish authority, although the German nobility continued to rule largely outside of the reach of Poland, and Germanic culture dominated most of the Baltic ever since (especially in Latvia and Estonia). Having merged with Brandenburg in the 1600s, German Prussia broke from Slavic authority and eventually dominated the whole region. Thus, most of the original Teutonic German lands of Prussia returned to the German authority in the Prussian and Austrian empires and, after 1871, in Germany. Danzig, Pomerania, Prussia, and western Lithuania became strictly German lands.

After the defeats of World War I, the new Polish nation enjoyed the Allies seizure of the German lands in Poland with the separation of Germany from Prussia. Danzig and much of modern western Poland was taken from the Germans. Poland itself became its own Fascist state, ruled for decades by right-wing dictators especially Ignacy Mosciki. The Polish irredentist dream of returning to the massive Polish-Lithuanian empire led to the invasion of Lithuania and the new Western Ukrainian republic, the same illegal and unprovoked invasions for which Germany soon would suffer consequences with Poland emerging unscathed. Western Ukraine was seized, with much loss of life on both sides. The invasion was, in part, to protect the large Polish populations in Lithuania and western Ukraine (Galicia) left over from the Commonwealth. The modern Lithuanian capital, Vilnius (Wilno) was seized by Poland because, in part, it was overwhelmingly Polish. Poland was lionized for repelling the subsequent Red Army invasion of Lenin, in part sparing the West from further Communist conquest.

The ethnic situation in Poland only presented further problems. Due to the seizure of long-German lands in what became Poland, huge pockets of Poland were ethnic German, Protestant, and had bitter rejection of Polish hegemony and were equally engulfed by the prevalent ethnic German nationalism that dominated Germany and Austria. Danzig (now Gdansk), was central to this conflict. This city, seized from Germany, was overwhelmingly German, and thus became used by German propaganda as evidence for Germans being "oppressed" in "their own lands" that were stolen from them by the hated Slavs and liberals at the Versailles treaty (1919-1921). Indeed, there were many events in which Polish civilians massacred German civilians throughout Poland, such as at Bromberg, but it is fair to say that the violence was equally performed by the Germans against the Poles.

The invasion of Poland, i.e. the cause (in part) of World War II, was presented as a liberation of the Germans from alien (non-German) rule in tandem with the desire to expand German living space and reverse the humiliating theft of long-German land in Prussia. Another issue in the Polish ethnic situation was the presence of the Jewish minority. Although today presented as a major population in Poland that was long tolerated and accepted, the Jews, after having been encouraged only under the authority of the king Cazimierz the Great (perhaps partly inspired by his love for a Jewish mistress), lived as a small minority that lived as third-class citizens. Their languages were typically banned, and they were prevented from owning private property in most regions, but they enjoyed a disproportionate domination of the Polish economy. Obviously, the presence of the German and Jewish minorities played a huge role in World War II.

Ultimately, the German effort to liberate the German minority in Poland, to slaughter the small Jewish minority, and to reverse the humiliating theft of long-German land from the Germans after World War I backfired. After World War II, the Allies and Soviets cut Germany almost in half. All of the lands of German Prussia -- ruled in part by Germans or the German nobility for some 800 years -- were lost altogether. Königsberg in Prussia, the ancient German capital, was seized as a personal prize of the Russians and renamed Kaliningrad (after Stalin's second-in-command), as it remains today part of the Russian Federation as an exclave oblast. Worst of all for the Germans, nearly all ethnic Germans were expelled from their ancient homelands (much as the Poles were by the Nazis and the Lithuanians were by the Poles) in a mass exodus that changed the ethnic demography of Eastern Europe forever. As always, the worst suffering occurred among the Jews, as the Soviets had little more respect for the Jewish minority than the Germans. Today, Poland is very homogeneous, being almost exclusively Polish Catholic, with sizeable Russian, Lithuanian, and Ukrainian minority populations.

Click the below map for the full-size version! Click on the map again to zoom.

If an error has been made, please notify the EHL Staff.

________________________________________

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

James Mayfield is the owner and Chairman of the European Heritage Library. I am working for a doctorate in history, with a specific emphasis on Islamic and European histories. I am well versed in all world cultures, ethnicities, religions, languages, politics, and historical evolution in relation to and against each other.

BIBLIOGRAPHY/SOURCES USED:

The image is a two-page scan from the superb Polish, Lithuanian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian history book The Concise History of Poland, by Jerzy Lukowski and Hubert Zawadzki.